


Veneration

by mercibun



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Fluff, Gender-neutral Reader, Meet-Cute, Multi, i have not re-edited this please excuse any typos, now featuring Actual Capitalisation hell yeah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:40:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25953085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercibun/pseuds/mercibun
Summary: Is there a word for, even if it is only for an instant, falling in love with a total stranger?...noun:veneration; plural noun:venerations"Veneration is the act of honouring a person who has been identified as having a high degree of sanctity or holiness."
Relationships: Haiba Alisa/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Veneration

**Author's Note:**

> ms alisa haiba please hold my hand

You first meet her in the early afternoon of mid-spring, when the seasonal flowers are in full bloom and the air has the slightest promise of summer ahead.

The corridors of your university are familiar territory by now, winding stairs and questionably rickety elevators, narrow hallways that are way too claustrophobic in the midst of students leaving their just-finished lectures. Honestly, you’re just glad that the majority of your classes are just a little out of the way. They can be hard to get to at some times, but there are less people to contend with.

With your lesson finished for the afternoon, you’re on your way out of the building (something easy to eat sounds really good right now; maybe ramen? Though you aren’t sure you’re that hungry), when you cross paths with someone you haven’t met before. You stop in your tracks; she’s the only other person in the hall, but you feel like you might just have fallen into the role of an unwitting voyeur just by being in her presence.

She stands by the bay window, one hand raised to the curtains to keep them out of the way. The slight tilt of her chin turns her scrutiny towards the garden, attention fixed firmly on something amid the flowers two stories below. The golden light of late-afternoon shifts in ripples over platinum hair, a well-kept silken wave that cascades down her back. Her blush-pink blouse has a red pattern you can’t quite make out, but you suspect they might be a fruit of some kind.

There’s a curious grace to her posture that belies the youth in her face, reminiscent of a monarch whose compassionate eyes constantly trace the well-loved lines of her kingdom. How long has she lived to see her people flourish under love and guidance? What has she seen, who has she loved, in the eternity that trails in her wake?

If she were an everlasting queen then _oh,_ what you wouldn’t give to be a knight in service to Her Majesty.

The curtains fall and sway when she lets them go a moment later, dancing in the peculiar rhythm of gravity. She turns to you without losing a single line of that peculiar posture.

Her eyes are so green. You’d liken them to emeralds, but that might be cliche, so you settle to file them away as chips of green-glass bottles caught by the sunlight. But they aren’t _just_ that either; they’re just a touch bluer than that, as if someone had dusted the finest layer of a winter sunday’s morning beneath the verde.

The corners of her eyes crinkle just so when she smiles politely, melting any lingering frost that your mental comparison might have garnered, and your breath catches. Did you die? Surely you have. There's no way someone like this exists on your earth.

“Hi.” You say, eloquently.

“Hello.” She responds. Her voice is high and clear, flush with the ring of a thousand chimes even if you cannot find their source.

Is there a word for, even if it is only for an instant, falling in love with a total stranger?

(Maybe not, but you know there are words to describe falling in love with someone you have grown to know as well as yourself. Perhaps that will suit your heart a little better.)

“Are you new?” Your venture is shaky at best, but apparently this peculiar piece of divinity has chosen to humour you because her eyes sparkle when she shakes her head.

“Ah, no - I don’t attend here. I’ve been hired to model for an art module the university is teaching this semester.”

“You’re a model?” You echo, barely catching yourself from voicing the awe-filled murmur of _that makes a lot of sense._

“I am!” She chirps, enthusiasm shining through the cracks in her eloquence. You suspect that you’re being bathed in sunlight just from the upward twitch of her smile.

“Do you know which building you’re going to be in?”

“Well …” The smile slips from her face, replaced by a soft frown. She places one hand on her cheek, averting her eyes for a moment. Her brows furrow. “I was looking for the administration building, so that someone could point me in the direction I’m meant to be going. I came here today for that reason, actually. But I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere!” She buries her face in her hands, and through the gaps in her hair you can see the tips of her ears turn red.

“Oh, I- I can show you back if you want!” The offer slips out before you can really think to catch it, and you raise your hands a little in a placating gesture. She peeks through her fingers at you, blinks a couple of times, and slowly lowers her hands from her face. There's still a slight pink tint to her cheeks.

“Really? I don't want to cause you any trouble.”

“My class is finished and I was heading back that way. It's no problem at all, promise.” You smile, and the reassurance seems to settle her somewhat because she relaxes back into that easy grace she'd transfixed you with when you had first seen her. Hope blooms across her features.

“Thank you so much!”

You wonder briefly, as you exit the building by her side, how she managed to get this lost. Your building isn’t exactly easy to find (unlike the admin building where she claims that she needed to go). It’s both exasperating and incredibly endearing at the same time, and you can’t quite keep the smile off your face. Despite appearances, maybe she is simply human like you.

At the side of your nameless sovereign you walk in companionable quiet, as if you've known each other for scores of years rather than a few moments. You keep an eye on your surroundings with the practised ease which speaks of your being a student here - perhaps more so than usually would. She does not know the little pitfalls and potholes of the campus paths as intimately as you, so you feel duty-bound in a sense to make sure she doesn’t trip.

Perhaps there is still room for a knight in slightly dented armour by the side of a clandestine queen.

“This is the one. I’ll walk you to the building, if you want.” 

Her response is an affirmative nod, and the small motion warms a hollow space in your lungs that you hadn’t quite been sure what to do with until that moment. You take a breath to ask a question; you aren’t quite sure what it would be, however -

Pushed by fate, or perhaps just right on cue, her shoe catches on a notorious crack in the pavement as the two of you approach the administrative building. The question dies in your throat as she yelps, tottering forward, but - by some divine intervention - you're just as fast. 

Your grip on her arm isn't exceptionally graceful but it's enough to stop her fall, and you haul her upright in one smooth motion. Her hands are warm against your forearm as she steadies herself. You catch a whiff of perfume, somewhere between peach and vanilla; soft and sweet, like she.

The two of you linger for what might just be a heartbeat longer than necessary before dropping your hands, shy smiles directed away from the other. Your gaze is caught by the shift of her shirt against her arm; her shirt is patterned with what you think might be lychees, but you'd need to see the fruit in person to be sure. It’s you who breaks the silence first, piping up among the brush of a soft breeze that rustles at your clothes.

“You okay?”

“Yes. You saved me again.” There's a teasing lilt to her voice, that soft smile back in place which instils a soft sense of yearning. She brushes pale strands out of her eyes, tucking the wave of platinum behind her ear. She startles slightly with no trigger, and reaches for the bag slung over her shoulder.

“Here.” She searches through her bag for a moment, pulling free a pen and a notepad. Brows creased, she scribbles something on the page and folds it over before pressing it into your hand. _Warm,_ you note, but the fleeting moment ends before you can form enough thought to follow the impression. “I have to get going now before the office closes but thank you for helping me!”

She flees with a wave and a swirl of peach-vanilla perfume, that soft pink flush back on her cheeks. A cape would not be out of place trailing in her wake, tangling in the wind left behind by hurried footsteps.

As quickly as she entered your life she’s gone again: leaving you with your thoughts, oath-bound with nothing to shield once more. A fleeting moment granted by fate at the side of a nameless regent, light personified in the form of unlit hair and green eyes. You remain in the late afternoon sun for a moment, free hand raised in farewell, thoroughly stunned by her sudden departure. 

_I forgot to ask her name._

**Author's Note:**

> Alisa rustles through her bag and laments over the fact that she had her business cards with her the whole time. It must have been awkward, watching her scribble on a note like that, but she'd seen no other option.
> 
> Her phone lights up with a text from an unknown number, your introduction sitting on the screen alongside an affirmation that you'd been the one to help her out today, and she smiles. She didn't fancy herself a queen by any measure besides confidence, but maybe there was something to be said about a knight in shining armour coming to her rescue in an unfamiliar place.


End file.
